a blaze of bullets, they said a mundane building was the hideout, looking like any brick facade he was to be taken alive but Death had other ideas three children, three young soldiers and a Rebbe are the dead man’s alleged victims. He also shot and wounded two policemen in the standoff more poignant than the ‘blaze of bullets’ were the tears and weeping over the yellow wooden caskets of the children, the Rebbe, the soldiers, most of whom, for religious reasons, had to be buried...

if one were to read von Clausewitz, Lao Tzu, Machiavelli, or even the I Ching, the timing of announcements is high craft. I cant image any WHouse singing ‘Dum de tee dum, Oh yes, let’s just choose any old day to tell the subjects the king was in a cross hairs.’ Just my .02. I find much similarity between the inkspot country Vatican and most every regime in terms of much shuffling around behind the bulging curtains, and much making of ‘pretend’ deus ex machinas and...

I apologize for the half dozen or so comments caught in spam filter today. We have an earlier form of comments’ software running at the moment. I have ok’d each comment, and they ought to show up now right where you left them… unlike some people’s wits, somedays including mine as I try to balance health challenges, work, tmv, finishing two books, guiding and loving grandkids, reading, listening to some boss R & B the more grit the better, and writing the definitive volume...

The month of March, in the USA, is called women’s history month. Many wondrous women have gone before us… we stand on their shoulders for certain, but because many of the women were not talked up and their lives not taught about in academia and schools…over the years their names became more and more faint as the waves of culture, both new boons and claptrap, erased their names. But, like an invisible ink, if one knows where to look, one finds their names and faces… that...

I’d meet you at the place pictured, any place where I think you and I might agree that meaningful words and ideas are spoken better by the magnitude of nature than by human beings in perpetual pique. This is the last stanza of Rumi’s poem… Rumi is an old old Persian poet who wrote about the low level of discourse in his day… and offered another road to travel, another way of seeing soul and self… and then after, remaining in ‘that’ place of magesty, to...

I hope Mr. Breitbart rests in peace now. And that his 4 kids and wife will be comforted. It appears he had a heart attack or stroke, out for a walk, suddenly fell down. A stranger dialed 911. He was dead it seems when emergency help arrived. Again, may his people be comforted. I’d just remind, even if it could cause a few people to awken sooner rather than later… that many people, esp men, but women too, are born with a weakness of one part of the body or another. But when it is the heart...

Rick joins Newt, Herman, Governor Perry, Donald in ‘loose lips’ sink one’s own ship. As my dearest dear old Navy surrogate dad, aged 96 and with clear as gin mind used to say: “His battleship mouth sunk his rowboat ass.” And there lies the denouement of the would be contendahs, who over and over became utterly seduced by and their usually clear wits overwhelmed with the applause and cheering over a pretty turn of phrase… and thus began playing to limited steerage,...

ANNUAL VALENTINE’S STORY: The Underlying Meaning of Valentine’s Day………….. Valentine’s Day Alert, Anywhere USA: A woman punches another woman to seize the last red-flocked candy box at the drug store. Children fear going to school for they might not get as many valentine cards as some other kids. What used to be honorable behavior during an onslaught of the citadel, has become ‘aggression normale’ in Buy-Me-Land. What used to be a place of learning for the...

We will find out in ensuing months the bones underneath this decision and what really happened; how reliable a non-profit can be to reverse itself twice in a few days. We’ll follow along for now, but it may have had something to do with Komen’s corporate sponsors. I’ve rec’d several emails yesterday and today asking that all write to Komen’s food and entertainment sponsors to protest Komen’s decision against the poor regarding breast cancer and screening… ...

UPDATE: See posts atop the fold about Komen rescinding their decision to withdraw funding and future applications for funding from Planned Parenthood, dateline Feb 3, 2012) Duke, a progressive university with a strong med school may have ‘a problem, Houston.” They’ve invited Brinker along with four other notable people to do 2012 commencement. Problem may rise up with parts of vocal student body and profs, as they now realize Brinker just cut off Planned Parenthood from Komen funding...

small plus or minus. Sometimes, you wish you could sort of grind them all up like sausage taking the best of each and come out with one more diverse and solid person. And, it does not surprise that a proven family man overtakes a man who has family and many wives. How ironic that Mormons used to enact polygamy mainstream, and no longer except for the likes of felon Warren Jeffs, master child molester in his renegade group of so-called fundie Mormons (Jeffs says.)… and yet we have Newt with...

When I read this letter for the many-eth time in my life, I see MLK’s spiritual discipline, the knowledge of how to go forward in four steps, the leadership, the clear demands, the efforts at negotiation, the spiritual self-examination so one doesnt go off half-cocked caught up in the yelling… and the non violent protest for clear cut goals. When I read Reverend King’s letter from Birmingham jail, I know he was in a defeatest mood for he could not get the support he needed (as...

Was it ever the truth? Or a form of blind idealism our teachers wished for us. Many of us were taught, we too could grow up to be president. Even us rag-bag kids in handmedowns either too small or too big, scuffed shoes that would never shine cause they were down to the bone of the leather, crowded in 65 to a classroom, sharing desks, not enough books to go around, never ever being able to take a book home. Even those of us whose parents spoke heavily accented English, even those whose parents...

Below is the list of negative words Newt proposed be used by potential candidates against their opponents: It is from Newt Gingrich’s 1996 GOPAC memo. I remember reading a nearly identical list of negative words in one of his books and wondered why he would broadcast his strategy that then could so easily be boomeranged back on him by his opposition. It’s odd now, all these years later, his language has not matured over these last 16 years, for many of these same negatives he touted...

Yawn, talk to the hand, how about dem Bears? Almost any conversation would be more interesting than one state’s caucuses after months, MONTHS of listening to mostly petty rhetoric that has NO specifics all in one place about how to govern, truly help a suffering country. And neither does the other side either. Tried to refinance lately? How about turning back a foreclosure? Tried to buy health insurance lately? It is HELL. Trust me on this. All talk from incumbent gov’t, but no go. No...

For much of the world, this is New Year’s Eve and is now officially 2012… and just this: My friend Rigoberta Menchu Tum, of the Mayan K’iche tribe, and Nobel peace prize winner, says of 2012, it marks the ending of an era, and beginning of a new 40 year period of an unprecedented time to bring all strength and goodness into the world. Many of us will live and give through some part or all of this next 40 years. Now would be the time to not hold back, but to pour good into our world,...

The Lost Story About What The Old Man and the New Baby Used to Mean for Human Renewal of Body, Mind, Spirit, Heart and Soul… at New Year’s We’re led to believe that New Year’s images are about the Old Year going out as a bent over old man… and the New Year toddling in as a grinning infant. That’s what the buycandy buywine buybeer folks would have us believe. But those are degraded images. Long ago, there were far brighter symbols for this ending of one revolution and beginning a new...

This is a great night and day: winter solstice; the time when the light comes back more and more for longer and longer glancing across Planet Earth to us, the Fire Star, that is, the sun, comes back to us. In our family the old people would put on their galoshes over their butchkors and bring in fresh and oh so cold water from the well pump outdoors and we would feast on something yellow, orange and/or red, the colors of the sun! most often the banana peppers, the lantern peppers and the cayenne...

For me, I’d vote to cause all persons who were polled to also make a youtube video of their phone conversation with the pollster so I can see who they are, where they are, and their tones of voice, and judge for myself how in depth the poll was, whether anything was answered in depth, whether anyone had humor, or a sick baby, or a car broken down, or a mortgage they couldnt pay, or ten classic cars outside the kitchen window. I’d vote to know/see/ and hear who exactly is being polled....

Christopher Hitchens seemed to some to have been born in a bad mood or under a bad moon on the right. He was, I think, more so a man who despised –as in George Orwell’s book, 1984 too, that there would ever be “The Party” run by the Big Brothers of the world, that would tell men and women what to think, when to think it and when to unthink it, or else. Christopher thereby took out after various cultural tropes he thought to be ‘my way or the highway’ fascists...